Distribution of Comments in the London Daily Mail about Long-Term Movie-Induced Fears

The article describes our research on the long-term effects of frightening movies.[1] Having performed an informal content analysis of the relevant comments, I can report that about 10% of the entries are like Peejay's. Another 11% of the commenters claim that reality is much scarier than fiction. And 3% complain that such research is a waste of time and money. The remaining 76% of the commenters meet Peejay's criteria for raving madness, I guess.

Many People Give Up Swimming in Lakes and Pools After Watching "Jaws."

They name movies that freaked them out, and many of them admit to being uncomfortable to this day in certain ordinary situations related to their movie. The usual effects are mentioned: People giving up swimming after seeing Jaws, dreading the shower after seeing Psycho, and feeling phobic around clowns after movies like Poltergeist and It. Family movies such as The Sound of Music, children's classics like Bambi, and beloved educational TV characters like Big Bird are there, too.

"Get over it people it's just a movie." says another commenter.

"Never heard such rubbish—bunch of pathetic wimps," says a third.

Are three-quarters of us mentally ill wusses? Not according to the neurophysiology of fear. Joseph LeDoux [2] who studies fear reactions to real-life threatening events, identifies two distinct areas of the brain that are involved in the fear response: the prefrontal cortex, the area involved in conscious reasoning, and the amygdala, an almond-shaped lower-level area that's important for emotions. When you have an intense fright reaction, the amygdala responds fastest and creates the physiological response we refer to as fight-or-flight. Your cerebral cortex takes more time to react as it consciously evaluates whatever it was that frightened you.

Since the fear system is designed to help us survive life-threatening situations, LeDoux argues that it's important that our memories hold tightly to any intensely frightening experience. This way, we're prepared to protect ourselves if we're ever in that situation again. Research shows that although our conscious memories of traumatizing events are not always correct and are quite malleable over time, implicit fear memories that are stored in the amygdala are highly resistant to change. In fact, LeDoux says they're "indelible." [3]

The Amygdala Holds on Tight to Memories of Whatever Has Traumatized Us.

Our reactions to films are often irrational: Even though we know it's only a movie when we're watching it, if we become intensely frightened our amygdala will hold onto that memory as if our life depended on it. So, for example, if Jaws traumatized us as a child, we react strangely when we go swimming now: Our head may be telling us there are no sharks in pools, but our heart may be beating extra fast. It's getting ready to escape the vicious beast that it suspects may appear any moment. [4]

Keep in mind that our brains evolved a long time ago, long before reality was predominantly virtual. Back then, if you saw a vicious animal, a grotesque distortion of nature, or other people expressing fear, you were probably in mortal danger. [5] Today we see these things all the time on a variety of digital devices. And even though our higher-order reasoning tells us we're safe, our amygdala apparently isn't so sure.

So, no, Peejay, we may be irrational at times [6], but we're not nuts. Even as adults, our emotions can be strongly affected by what we watch, even if it's make-believe. And these emotions often linger.

I completely agree with you. Some images are just plain horrifying and scary - and stick with you long after you wish they were gone.

Also, sometimes, viewers don't know how to evaluate the realism of what they're seeing, even if they know it's just a film. My kid recently saw a film about high school in which the tough football jocks terrorize the smaller kids. He turned to me with great stress in his face and asked me if high school was really that bad. It was just a cheesy, supposedly inspirational film from the 1970s, but it caused him a lot of anxiety. So, "just a film" isn't really an adequate dismissal of people's fears, on lots of different levels.

One of the most recent movies that scared my daughter was a movie shown during the DARE (drug resistance education) program at school. The movie was actually about suicide and how bullying can lead to suicide. She has been really freaked out about the whole idea of someone getting the wrong idea about something (innocent) she says to them and killing themselves, I think maybe she wasn't ready for a movie this heavy, and this movie was supposed to be helpful. Although it freaked her out so much, I do wonder if these lasting cognitions will, in the end, have the intended effect (prevent bullying). I can guarantee she will list it someday if she is ever in a retrospective study! by the way...I was afraid of the ocean my whole life and my parents wouldn't even let me SEE JAWS, just the commercials and the IDEA of it were enough to freak me out. and that music.